fatima – Part Two

Three dirty, disoriented doves at fatima.

You should know this, Timothy, that in the last days there will be very difficult times. For people will love only themselves and their money. They will be boastful and proud, scoffing at God, disobedient to their parents, and ungrateful. They will consider nothing sacred. They will be unloving and unforgiving; they will slander others and have no self-control. They will be cruel and hate what is good. They will betray their friends, be reckless, be puffed up with pride, and love pleasure rather than God. They will act religious, but they will reject the power that could make them godly. Stay away from people like that!

They are the kind who work their way into people’s homes and win the confidence of vulnerable women who are burdened with the guilt of sin and controlled by various desires. (Such women are forever following new teachings, but they are never able to understand the truth.) These teachers oppose the truth just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses. They have depraved minds and a counterfeit faith. But they won’t get away with this for long. Someday everyone will recognize what fools they are, just as with Jannes and Jambres, (2 Timothy 3:1-9).

Because I knew fatima to be a place of very heavy demonic activity, I wasn’t keen to go there. But the Holy Spirit was insistent. And because of the demonic activity there, I really didn’t want to spend a lot of time there—certainly not overnight. And that was when the Holy Spirit gave me an idea how to get this task done in the quickest possible time frame: rent a car. So we rented a car in Porto, one-way overnight Porto to Lisbon[1].

The car rental didn’t go as smoothly as we had hoped. The rental agency had canceled my online rental and sent me an email in Portuguese. The only thing I had understood in the email was my cancellation number, which I had taken to be the number I would need if I decided to cancel the reservation since it was prepaid. When we arrived the rental agent told us that the rental had been canceled. I asked if it was possible to rent a car, since we had come to the Airport specifically for this purpose. The answer was yes, but it will cost more, since there was no reservation.

That was when Tim went into bad cop mode, seeing that I had remained calm in the face of this. He said, loudly enough for all the other customers to hear: “This is bait and switch! This is a bad business practice! We’re going to give your company a bad rating,” and so forth. It was only later that Tim revealed to me that he was just doing bad cop to try and get the agent to give us the online prepaid price that we had asked for. The prices are fixed by the company, and the agent couldn’t give us the online rate. But she did give us a lower price than she had originally quoted, so bad cop worked—well done, Tim!

For my part, I had no trouble at all being the good cop because I have worked in the kind of job where clients get mad and yell at you for something you have no control over. So I have a lot of sympathy for people in her position.

We got the car and drove to fatima. When we arrived we found that there were several entrances into the parking lot, each manned with a guard waving you in. We went in the third entrance. The parking lot is a gigantic uneven dirt lot with trees, and extended as far as the eye could see in all directions, and was full of people coming and going, sitting in their cars, sifting through the contents of their trunks, etc. The cars and tour buses were all parked helter-skelter. It seemed very odd to me that there were attendants at the entrances to the lot, but nobody actually in the lot, and no order to it whatsoever. Looking back, I realize that the confusion of the parking lot was indicative of the confusion of the people there.

I hoped that nobody would block me in so I parked in such a way that I had nothing in front of or behind me. Tim opted to stay in the car, so as I walked through the parking lot toward the shrine, I looked back several times, hoping to burn into my memory where the car was parked.

From the parking lot I first came to a huge camping area where dirt became grass and there were more trees. The camping area also full of people and extended as far as the eye could see in all directions. Seeing this, I began walking much faster, keeping to as straight a course as I could. All along the way, I was asking God for instruction on how to pray here, and praying in tongues as I walked and waited for God’s answer.

From the camping area I entered a gigantic piazza with a round building in the middle. I continued walking, faster and faster, finally passing the building and the surrounding piazza. Past this was another huge piazza with an even bigger crowd than the parking lot, camping area, and round piazza combined. This second piazza sloped down toward a building in the distance that I realized must have been the shrine. Most people were clearly in groups of varying sizes, walking, eating lunch, praying, singing, or talking together.

At one point I passed through a part of the piazza that was relatively empty. There in the middle of the empty space were three white doves on the ground. They looked dirty, disheveled, and disoriented: staggering along on the ground. I snapped a picture and walked on. Finally when I got to the cross in the middle of the piazza, the Lord stopped me and spoke audibly. He said: “These people are like sheep without a Shepherd[2].” His voice broke, and was filled with such sorrow that I began crying, too.

I understood in that moment how much the Lord loves these people, and how deeply grieved He is for them—heartbroken. They jump through all these hoops that the church sets up for them: pilgrimages, rosaries, Saturday confession, and so forth. And they do it all in the hope of somehow getting closer to God.

The catholic church leadership don’t read the Bible, and they deny the people the right to read the Bible, which would bring them closer to God. The church doesn’t allow Bible reading because if they read the Bible, the people would understand the many unbiblical doctrines and practices of the catholic church. So they tell the people that they could never understand the Bible without a priest to explain and interpret it for them. And telling them that they can’t understand the Bible not only keeps them from ever reading the Bible, but it’s also a curse spoken over them so that the seeds of faith from reading the Bible never take root in their hearts[3].

The Seven Woes that Jesus pronounced over the Jewish priests of His day apply equally to the leadership of the catholic church today. Especially:

What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you shut the door of the Kingdom of Heaven in people’s faces. You won’t go in yourselves, and you don’t let others enter either, (Matthew 23:13, emphasis mine).

So the people desperately pray to mary and get no results. They come to places like fatima, hoping that she will appear as before, but she doesn’t. And even if there is an apparition, it’s a demon masquerading as mary. The real Mary has never been to Europe. She has never been to Portugal or to France. And her house is not in Italy, as church claims, saying that angels picked up mary’s house and flew it to Italy, to the town of Loreto. The catholic church has told such massive lies that they throw doubt onto Biblical miracles when the people begin to question the existence of God. And as I my thoughts followed this path, suddenly I began to grasp the enormity of the mass deception and the horror of it all.

Then I knew how to pray. There, surrounded by probably as much as a million people, I wept and prayed fervently for their salvation, and for God to open their eyes and to show them the truth. I broke every witchcraft spell off the people there, and prayed that God would extend that to include all catholics everywhere.

Then I felt an urgency to leave, so I turned and retraced my steps, continuing to pray for the people. When I came to the open space where I had seen the doves, they were still there, but they looked completely different. They held their tail feathers erect and they looked whiter than before. Instead of being isolated, now there were children gleefully chasing them. I took another picture of the doves. Then they suddenly took flight, all three together into the sky—a really beautiful sight, and confirmation of the answer to my prayers.

The doves perked up after prayer–and so did the children there.

As I continued praying and walking, a feeling of confidence bolstered my prayers. I knew for sure that I was praying in accordance with God’s will. And knowing that, I also knew that He is already answering those prayers.

As I entered the parking lot, I looked for the landmarks that I had hoped to remember, and they led me straight to the car where Tim was waiting. He was surprised at how quickly I had come back, and he looked at me with concern, seeing how pale I looked. He said: “Mom, are you OK?” I burst into tears again and said: “I’ve gotta get outta here.” I started the car and exited the parking lot, heading back toward the highway. The more distance I put between myself and that place, the better I felt.

God has promised me invisibility from the defeated enemy and his minions—both human and spirit—so I know that we were not seen, but as soon as I had prayed, we were probably sensed. I think that’s why I had felt an urgency to leave quickly. But I left knowing that my prayers were not in vain. Jesus came to set the captives free (Isaiah 61:1), and He will indeed do exactly that:

Solomon, my son, learn to know the God of your ancestors intimately. Worship and serve Him with your whole heart and a willing mind. For the Lord sees every heart and knows every plan and thought. If you seek Him, you will find Him. But if you forsake Him, He will reject you forever, (1 Chronicles 28:9, emphasis mine)[4].

God wants to see everyone saved (2 Peter 3:9). These catholic brothers and sisters are precious to Him, but their sins must be brought to Jesus.

He is so rich in kindness and grace that He purchased our freedom with the blood of His Son and forgave our sins, (Ephesians 1:7).

This is why God sent me to fatima, and on this Backward Camino: to pray for the catholic people to come to Him. And there at the foot of the cross, they will find what they’re looking for. God is good!

[1] In general, I travel as cheaply as possible, since this is God’s money, and not mine. But I didn’t hesitate to spend the money because this was definitely in the service of God, and it was God who gave me the idea to rent a car.

[2] Quoting from Matthew 9:36-38.

[3] Luke 8:5-15.

[4] See also Deuteronomy 4:29 and Jeremiah 29:13.